The other day I was listening to a fascinating interview on US executions. "So far this year, 5 convicted criminals felt the executioner'sneedle. Michael Graczyk watched as they took their last breath. Thereporter from the Associated Press has witnessed more than 300executions. It's believed he's seen more men and women put to deaththan anyone else in the United States." (Link is here. Audio is here)

But what caught my ear was the moment in the interview when Graczykremarked that in 1982, Texas resumed executions. I thought, there'sanother entry for my file "It all started in 1980."

From 1964 to 1982, eighteen years, Texas executed nobody.

In 1964 the US Supreme Court negated all death penalties nationwide in"Furman v. Georgia" due to unacceptable trial-and-sentencingprocedures. (details here, in case you care.)

States revised their trial procedures and by 1976 the Supremes allowedthat under these new procedures states could resume executions. YetTexas didn't use this until 1982 (a single execution), and then thingstook off.

However, this post has nothing to do with capital punishment, but withthe economy. And I noticed something interesting.

See, all this led me to look at the number of Texas executions overtime. In this very rough (don't laugh) graph,

there were three peaks in Texas executions -- in the late 1800s, in the 30s,and today's. Each peak has outdone the previous, and the 2000-2010numbers were the highest ever.

For those who don't notice it, these eras equate to the Long Depression, the Great Depression, and our current depression.

Now, I realize that an element of the growth in executions is tied topopulation growth, and if I had time I could chart that out. However,Texas population growth can be seen in this chart (http://www.lsjunction.com/texians/charta.gif), and is shown to be along smooth exponential rise since 1800. Taking that into account,there would still be three big bumps in the distribution ofexecutions. In my second laughable graph, you can see executionsreally take off in the late 90s, leading into the biggest decade ever-- 2000-2010, 248 executions.

It certainly looks to me like America's deepest recession /depressions, are linked to Texas executions in some way. Butlaughable graph #2

shows that the link is probablypredictive rather than resultant -- something is happening in the society which causes a buildup of personal disasters and/or punitive overreaction, before the bubble bursts.

If this is the case, then laughable graph #2 seems to show a dismallyhopeful trend, as execution rates have dropped since the housing andfinance bubbles burst in 2007-2008.